


Hatred is a bond, of a sort.

by Asher_Blackwood



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Gen, Inline with Heaven's Arena, Rated For Violence, hxh week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-23
Updated: 2014-09-23
Packaged: 2018-02-18 12:09:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2347955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asher_Blackwood/pseuds/Asher_Blackwood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He left you alive.<br/>It is an act of condescension that wakes you up at night, grinding your teeth into dust as your fingernails make neat little half-moons in the heel of your palm. He left you alive, in the same way you spare an insect when you're in a particularly good mood. He had you on your back, foot pressing into your chest hard enough to crack ribs, but he didn't, he simply released the pressure and walked away, TKO in hand.<br/>You will make him regret walking away if it is the last thing you do.</p><p>Kastro-centric fic, inline with Heaven's Arena canon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hatred is a bond, of a sort.

**Author's Note:**

> I love Heaven's Arena, I really do, admittedly mostly for the fact that it's straight-up Hisoka fightporn. But looking back at it, and at what the fandom's done, I find that most of the KilluGon fic set in that arena that I'd like to write has already been written, and I can't write HisoGon and still look at myself the same in the morning.  
> And then I remembered what my favorite fight was, and went "Hey, nobody really writes about Kastro".
> 
> Written for Day 1 of hxhweek: Favorite Arc x Bonds

He left you alive.

It is an act of condescension that wakes you up at night, grinding your teeth into dust as your fingernails make neat little half-moons in the heel of your palm. He  _ left _ you alive, in the same way you spare an insect when you're in a particularly good mood. He had you on your back, foot pressing into your chest hard enough to crack ribs, but he didn't, he simply released the pressure and walked away, TKO in hand.

You will make him regret walking away if it is the last thing you do.

You think circles around the fight, watch recordings for weeks, search for weaknesses, openings. You find very few, save the one you capitalized on the one time you knocked him down. It's hard being one body against a man with infinite mobility. It's too easy to get caught, and you're not faster than he is, likely never will be. You hit harder, but your range is limited. You need to motivate him to be close to you, because you can't catch him, and if he's running then he's already won.

His nen is utility; without the cards he can't hit you without stepping into your range. But you can't stop the cards; they're small, and deadly-fast, and you are a single target. It always comes back to that. You are one man, an enhancer at that; he counters you, plain and simple. The only way to beat him is to give him something equally threatening to look at.

You pause, abruptly ending the chaotic swirl of thoughts.

Something equally threatening.

You know what you need to do.

 

You return to the arena at your three-month maximum, halfway through the realization of a half-formed idea. You do nothing different than usual, and the announcer seems disappointed. You win effortlessly. Hisoka is nowhere to be seen.

 

The walls of your given room transform over the months, from a calming blank slate to pinned-up representations of the human body. Blood vessels, muscle structure, skeletons, and an immaculately-printed MRI of yourself. Bodies are complex, you knew this when you started, but you know it more sharply now than ever before. Conjuration itself isn't easy to get a hold of, but even once you do you can only make parts at a time. A hand, a leg, a disturbingly lifelike chunk of scalp. They get larger over time, but eventually the individual parts are awkward to combine. You choose the hand as your single starting point to build from; even if other things waver, your hands are your fighting ability, they need to be steady.

You gain about an inch a day, and lose half an inch with a day of rest. It is frustrating, tiresome work, and it drains your focus from anything else. Nobody poses half as much of a threat as he did, which is good, because if they did someone might notice you're constantly going into fights exhausted.

You finally get it, half a year later. When you open your eyes you see a flawless copy of yourself on the floor, gently holding your hand, corpse-like in its stillness. When you stand up and walk away, its (your) hand drops to the floor with a soft 'thump'. Your breath leaves you in a rush, and your entire body tingles with an elated numbness, but when the elation fades, the numbness does not.

You wake up on the floor half an hour later, your head smarting from where you hit it on the bedframe. Your conjured copy is gone.

 

Hisoka disappears, right around the time of the new year. The last anyone sees of him is him signing up for a fight at his three-month maximum and then he's gone, his aura nowhere to be found in the city, much less in the building. It is about the time for the hunter exam, but you can't imagine someone like him being interested in something like that. Unless...

You put it out of your mind. If anything, this is an opportunity. He thinks he knows what to expect of you, and the element of surprise is crucial, but you're also not so dumb as to have him be the test-run of your new ability. Better to try it earlier, on people who don't matter, so it's more refined when it gets to him.

Moving your copy has proved surprisingly easy compared to summoning it in the first place; as obvious as it sounds, you've been moving yourself all your life. Projecting that onto an exact copy of yourself is easy. Finding people it's necessary to use against, however, is not. Everyone seems painfully slow now, by comparison, and the better you get at summoning and dismissing yourself, the slower they seem. When he returns, with a bit of a dark cloud hanging about his aura, you haven't gotten into a place where using your double is necessary.

He's the single stain on your otherwise flawless record, and every time you hear the announcer mention it, you flinch, and stay up just a little bit later practicing the movements, making it move as your exact copy, and then independently. You iron out all the stutters, all the points where a finger didn't bend right or an eyebrow twitched where it shouldn't have, and once you're happy enough with it, you have it start impersonating you.

It can't go that far away, but it'll answer doors, talk on the phone, and nobody can tell the difference. You can move it as flawlessly as you move yourself.

Two years spent in preparation, and you knock on his door, telling him the date.

You're ready.

 

It's never been so easy to tune out a crowd. Coco is shouting some nonsense from inside her booth, and it slips right by you as you stare at the man opposite. Two years ago, he humiliated you on this stage. You will not allow it to happen again.

But at the same time, now that you're staring him down, you're almost thankful. "If not for that initiation you gave me back then," you say, "I would never be as strong as I am now."

He smirks, and suddenly all your positive feelings evaporate into thin air. "You mean to imply you're stronger now?"

You smooth out the spike the voice wants to make before you speak. "Just so you know, I never used my full strength in any of my nine fights after my loss to you. Those matches were nothing more than a warm-up."

He doesn't react. You are going to decimate him.

As soon as the referee calls start, your double rushes forward. You slink into the shadow of its cape, hiding yourself and your presence. He dodges your double, and you dismiss it as you emerge from underneath. He smirks, and you get the deep satisfaction of smacking it right off his face.

The referee announces a clean hit. Hisoka isn't smiling anymore, crouched on the ground a few feet away from you, and is bleeding gently from a cut on his face where your knuckles hit him. You've never felt better in your life.

"Give me your best shot." You say, only loud enough that he can hear it. "Hisoka."

He wipes off the blood, and his usual smirk has returned. "I'm not the same person I was two years ago." You point out, even though it should be obvious now. "I won't hold back on my next attack."

He stands back up, blood gathering back up in the wound on his face. "You'll have my best shot when I deem it necessary."

"Very well." You can accept this. You will earn it, eventually. "Then I hope you'll change your mind soon."

Your double leaps forward as you conceal yourself again, and you can see him focusing on its hand, trying to figure out the illusion. You hit him again, from the opposite side this time, and with the sharp end of your fingers, leaving three gouges in his face. You chase him yourself this time, and he backs away from you, dodging you fluidly in a way that mirrors the first time you fought him.

"What's wrong?" You taunt. You need to goad him back into fighting you; it's harder to conceal a double when he's already on the run. "Will you just run around, rather than attack?"

You ready a kick, and it gets him to stand still for a second. All the chance you need. You slip your double behind him while he's distracted with blocking you, and knock him to the ground with it. The referee shouts your points, and there's a rush of satisfaction that almost makes you shiver. All the points you scored last time, in the first three minutes.

"Have you still not changed your mind?" You ask, standing a little straighter now that he's on the ground. "Or would you prefer to die ignorant?"

You almost surprise yourself; you hadn't come in with the intention of ending his life. But now that you've said it, it seems natural. He had the chance to end your life before, and refused to take it. You're not going to copy his mistake.

He stands after startling the referee, dusting off an insignificant part of his pants. "If I am not mistaken," he drawls, "you seemed to disappear."

The world falls into sharp focus as your calm drops out from under you. He's catching on too quickly. "No, that is not quite accurate. You were readying a kick from the front, when suddenly, you were behind me." He hums quietly. "I suppose that would be more precise, but that doesn't sound right...something is off." He lifts his hand, and you suddenly know what you need to do. "Yes, I feel like I'm missing something very basic here..."

"It's futile." You interrupt him before he can get too close. "If you continue to run in circles, you'll never learn the truth." And if he stands still, he'll lose something he can't afford to. "I'll take your arm with my next strike." You let it sink in; he seems to ignore the gravity of the situation. "If you still will not attack, so be it. It seems you weren't good enough."

_ That _ gets his attention. You ready your Tiger Bite Fist, and feel the tension in the room rise. He stares at you like he's assessing, and then falls into an easy posture and a smile, lifting his left arm in your direction.

"Fine." He says, in a voice that curdles your gut. "Go ahead and take it."

"Not worried, huh?" You grit out, anger tinging a bit of your voice. "Or is this meant to be a trap?" A serious possibility; but he doesn't quite know yet, you're confident you can't lose. "Either way, I'll take your arm!" You run forward with your double, and dissipate it just short of severing the arm he'd rather lose, and you slip behind him once again.

"Your other one."

The crunch of his bone splitting and then separating gives you the greatest high of your life; his arm flies away in an arc, splattering blood on his face and the floor as it sails off towards the ceiling with the force of your strike. You may have overdone it. You really can't be bothered to care.

"You can't assume that I'll act the way you want." You taunt.

There in a twinge of darkness, a crumble in his facade, but when he turns back to look at you the smile has returned. "This was just part of the plan."

"What crap." You spit back, and smack him in the face again. He skids to a halt right underneath the trajectory of his arm, and catches it in his other hand as the announcer spouts some nonsense you don't care enough about to listen to.

He looks briefly at his arm, and then back at you, chuckling. "I understand." Your gut drops out. "Your ability is, in fact, a double."

This was something you'd anticipated; someone of his skill level was bound to figure it out eventually. It's still sooner than you expected, but that's fine. He's down a limb; your victory is all but secured. "Impressive." You say, forcing yourself calm. "You are correct."

You shift back into a more natural posture before you split yourself in two, allowing you to create your double a whole half at a time, instead of hands-first the way you usually do. He's figured out the core of it, but you're not revealing more details than are absolutely necessary.

"Is this your doppelganger?" He asks, mocking you with the tone if not the exact words.

He's casually scratching his shoulder with his severed arm. You simmer, underneath the calm exterior. How? Is it a part of the joke? The part of his arm still attached to the rest of him is steadily dripping blood on the floor, and he doesn't seem to notice. "Indeed." You say with both mouths at the same time, taking him at his literal word. He can believe whatever he wants to. You're already at a tremendous advantage.

"I listened to your warning," he says, choosing his words more carefully now. He's trying to make an impression. You're automatically on the defensive. "And I watched carefully, rather than run. And it turns out that my deduction that you disappeared was correct. So why did I question that description?" You know why; it's the weakness of having to use  _ nen _ to attack him. "That's because," you know this already, "I still sensed your presence beside me. In fact, right before you disappeared," Why is he telling you what you obviously already know? "I felt a new presence. You duplicate yourself before disappearing."

"I'm impressed that you managed to figure it out." You say, with both your voices. If he's trying to unsettle you, you can play that game. "I was able to successfully create a double with  _ nen _ . My double goes on the attack, while I hide in the shadows. As soon as you react," you continue, slipping your double back into your body, "I dismiss my double, and attack."

You shrug slightly, with one shoulder. "Naturally, my double is no mere illusion. It exists as a second me until I send it away. You know this after suffering an attack from it." His one weakness; he is a dueler by nature. He can only run for so long with a second person blocking his path. "In other words, you must fight both of my selves." You step into position; now that he's figured it out, it's not the time to hold back. "This is the True Tiger Bite Fist, completed through my mastery of  _ nen _ . I call it the True Tiger Bite Fist!"

He grins, and you feel the power gathered in your hands intensify. "Next, I will take your left arm. Will you continue to act disinterested?"

"Hmm, let's see..." He licks his lips, like you're a particularly interesting piece of meat. The puddle near his feet is beginning to soak his shoes; why does he not care? "I think I have a little motivation now."

He whips out a scarf and covers his dismembered right arm with it; it's hardly bleeding anymore, but it does leave a threatening stain on one end.

"Shall I demonstrate my powers of clairvoyance?"

He tosses the scarf away, and cards rain down where his arm used to be. Your position is suddenly much tighter than it was before.

"Now, then... pick a number from these and picture it in your head."

You are going to burn him alive. He continues talking, but it goes right over your head; his arm is  _ missing _ , why does he not care? This is beyond a supernatural pain tolerance; his  _ nen _ must have something to do with mitigating this, there's no way he should still be standing otherwise. He snatches your attention back when he reaches  _ into _ his arm wound; you're going to vomit. He removes an ace of spades and turns the face towards you.

"The answer is one." He tosses the card in your general direction and you smack it out of the air with your real body.

"Scumbag," You grit out, between your teeth. It's the most natural answer to you and the perfect way to describe what you think of him. "I will sever your left arm, so that you can never mock anyone again."

He holds his remaining arm out to you again and your breath hiccups. "Did you not hear me the first time?" He says, with a completely genuine calm. "You may have it."

There is no way this isn't a trap. He wouldn't just sacrifice both of his limbs like that; you don't know what his plan for his other arm is, but you're sure he has something.

You can't risk attacking with your real self. You send your double at him instead.

"Your wish will be granted!" It shouts, and you fall behind it on pure instinct. You watch carefully, search for any perceptible change in his movement, and...

The other arm goes flying off into the air. Your double gasps out a "What?" on pure instinct, and you dissipate it before it can incriminate you further. The arm lands with a thud behind him and you suddenly feel as though you've made a terrible mistake.

"As expected, you attacked with your double." He says, looking away from the fading  _ nen _ of your copy and looking back up at you. "Had you, yourself, attacked, I would have countered." He pulls his now complete right arm from behind his back. "With this."

This is it, this is the clue you need. His  _ nen _ is restorative; he clenches his fingers, there's no way it isn't. "This is another magic trick~" he taunts. "Can you guess the secret behind it?"

It's the most blatant lie you've ever heard him tell. It's  _ nen _ , it's impossible for it to be anything else, but what kind of  _ nen _ is it? You don't quite have time to figure it out before he's giggling at you again. "Are you frightened?"

The world falls into slow motion. You are.

"You're surprised because you don't understand my trick." No, that's not it. "That's how magic works." No it's not, he's full of shit. "Your power to create a double is truly magnificent, but now I understand your ability. I can also anticipate how you will attack with your double and I know how to counter that attack."

You've lost.

"It's quite unfortunate."

It is.

"You had the talent to become a skilled opponent."

You did?

"That's why I spared your life."

Oh.

"Here is a prediction."

He advances on you and time begins to speed up again.

"You will die in a frenzied dance."

No.

"Silence!" You shout, and jump into the air. You double pops out of you seamlessly and you're about to hit him from both sides, when he suddenly makes eye contact with you. The real you. You back off immediately; he has one arm back, and apparently that's all he needs. How did he pick you out?

Your double remains on the attack, but he dodges it flawlessly, never looking away from you. "Doubles are created in the original's image, so they tend to be pristine. You can't recreate every effect of an ongoing battle."

You suddenly look down at yourself, and spot blood splatters on your clothes, from the earlier right arm severing. His nen is restorative; he bled on you as a strategy?

"Did you not realize this?" He asks, before his left arm goes flying into your jaw.

The world slips into soft focus, but he's loud enough that you can still hear him. "Don't bother. I hit you in the chin, so you'll have difficulty moving for a while." You burn; he thinks you, of all people, you who commands enough mastery of the human body to copy it down to the cell, doesn't know this? "Meaning you won't be able to avoid your next attack."

What?

The cards on the floor suddenly become animate, flying towards you at a speed you can just barely perceive, like this. You know what those cards are capable of; you need to block, since you can't dodge. Would a copy help? Surely it would, you need to-

"You can't create another double." He says, and you suddenly realize he's right. "You need intense focus to create a double from  _ nen _ . The only reason you were able to use doubles freely is because you had a normal state of mind."

What a joke.

"You wasted your potential," he says, in many more words than that. The world wavers around you, and you feel the sharp puncture of enhanced cards in your arms, in your legs, then popping your lungs. The last image you see before your eyes fall blank is his grinning face and you die with one thought on your mind.

You dedicated years to defeating him.

He wasn't thinking about you at all.

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr mirror: http://asherblackwood.tumblr.com/post/98212172872/day-1-favorite-arc-x-bonds


End file.
